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Two men who were convicted of being members of the Short North Posse have been sentenced by a
Franklin County Common Pleas judge.

Cornelius Allen, 31, was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for participating in a
criminal gang and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.

Merrell Middleton, 25, was sentenced last week to five years on the same charges. He also was
sentenced to one year for trafficking in marijuana, to be served at the same time.

Both already are serving prison terms for possessing guns despite previous felony convictions.
The new sentences, imposed by Judge Richard A. Frye, will be served concurrently with those
sentences.

On Nov. 10, a jury convicted Allen and Middleton after hearing six days of testimony, primarily
from Columbus police officers who had investigated the gang for 18 months.

Jurors acquitted a third defendant, Ashanti Williams, 33, of the gang and corrupt-activity
charges but convicted him of trafficking in marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school. He will be
sentenced on Dec. 15.

They were among 19 men indicted in December as a result of the police investigation of the Short
North Posse, which controls drug trafficking in an area of the Weinland Park neighborhood bounded
by 11th, Grant and 5th avenues and N. High Street. Testimony identified the gang’s primary hangout
as the intersection of 4th Street and 8th Avenue.

Thirteen of the defendants have pleaded guilty in deals with prosecutors. Three more await a
Jan. 19 trial date.